


Daft Punks

by my_mad_fatuation



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: Alternate Universe - 2000s, F/M, Punk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 13:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12582932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_mad_fatuation/pseuds/my_mad_fatuation
Summary: According to Finn, Rae is the last true punk at school. If that's so, then what does that make him?





	Daft Punks

**Author's Note:**

> Set in 2006 because I'm a lazy writer.

“You know what, Rae?” said Finn. “You might be the only true punk left at our school.”

Rae side-eyed him suspiciously as he sat next to her on a bench in the park after school. “What makes you say that?” she asked.

“Because you don’t give a _fuck_ , you know? You’re authentic.”

“What about you, then?”

“Well, I’m authentic, too,” he said with a grin.

“Says the guy who listens to _Green Day_ ,” she scoffed.

“So do you!”

“Only their stuff from the ‘90s”

“Hey, _American Idiot_ is a brilliant album, admit it.”

“Fine, whatever,” she said. “At least I’m not into blink-182.”

“Okay, but that’s just their ‘90s stuff, too,” he said. “I mean they’re no _Screeching Weasel_ , but…”

“Hey, what’s wrong with Screeching Weasel?” she said, looking down at her _My Brain Hurts_ t-shirt.

“I’m just saying, I prefer The Mr. T Experience.”

“Yeah, well, you would.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you like the Ramones, so I don’t really care what you have to say about music.”

“Don’t be daft! The Ramones are classic!” he argued.

“They play the same song over and over!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, not everyone can be _The Clash_ , alright?”

“The more you talk, the more it sounds like you know as much about music as my mum,” she said. She watched as he rolled his eyes, though he looked amused.

“You going to that show on Thursday?” he asked, fiddling with the cuffs on his wrists.

“I’d like to, but I doubt I’ll be able to stay out on a school night.”

“We could always leave early,” he said.

“We?”

“If you want.”

She smiled a little. “Maybe.”

“Alright, then,” he added, standing up. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”

****

Rae told her mum she was studying late with Chloe on Thursday, when in reality she hadn’t spoken to Chloe in months.

Instead she went down to the all ages club that would regularly host local punk rock shows. Most of the music was usually pretty terrible, but it was always a fun night out for her.

The first band was already playing when she got there, but there wasn’t much of a turnout yet, so she managed to find a spot to stand near the stage area. She was startled when she felt someone tap her on the shoulder and turned around to see Finn standing behind her with an arrogant smile on his face.

He said something to her but she didn’t hear it, so he leaned in and shouted in her ear. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said.

“And yourself,” she replied loudly.

He pushed his way into the spot beside her, getting some overly-pierced girl out of the way with his elbow. She shoved him back, causing him to collide with Rae, who in turn collided with the tall-haired guy next to her.

The next thing she knew, everyone was pushing and shoving each other back and forth. She looked over at Finn who just smiled at her like he was pleased with himself as they both got jostled.

The music picked up speed with the next song, and so the intensity of the moshing increased. Rae felt like a bumper car, getting crashed into from every direction at once. As she started to drift away from him, Finn grabbed onto her hand and pulled her closer so they wouldn’t get separated.

One hard shove in the back, and Rae completely lost her balance. She would have fallen if Finn hadn’t been right there, along with a wall of people behind him.

She yelled, “Sorry,” even though her face was right next to his, but he just laughed. She tried to take a step back from him, but someone was taking up all the space behind her. She was going to be stuck plastered to his front for the remainder of the song, it seemed.

He held onto her arms, with his elbows sticking out, like he was trying to keep everyone else away except her. She found herself involuntarily holding his sides to keep from getting knocked over. They were still getting shoved around, but this time as one unit.

Bringing his face closer, he shouted something into her ear, but she still couldn’t hear him.

“What?” she said as loud as she could.

He drew his head back slightly and smirked at her before going in for the kill—or rather, he kissed her. They kept their lips locked as best they could as they got knocked around, until the song terminated, thus ending the current band’s set and dispersing the crowd around them.

He was still smirking as he pulled away from her, and she was still stunned.

***

The rest of the show was less eventful—they never got a full-on mosh pit going again, but Rae was somewhat grateful for that. She already knew she was going to have a couple of bruises from where someone’s elbow had dug into her back repeatedly.

She and Finn didn’t talk about the kiss, though. They said things like, “This music is shit,” and such, but didn’t really discuss much at all until they were leaving and he offered to drive her home.

“Do you want to come ‘round mine tomorrow afternoon?” he asked her as they headed towards her house. “I was thinking I could try and convince you that Steriogram is a good band.”

“That’s gonna take a lot of convincing,” she said with a laugh.

“I’m willing to put the time in if you are,” he said.

“I’ll think about it,” she said when he came to a stop a few houses down from hers so her mum wouldn’t see them.

He gave her a look like he knew she was going to say yes. “Night, Rae.”

***

Rae was nervous about going over to Finn’s the next day. Was it a date? He’d kissed her at the punk show and then invited her over to his house, so did that mean he liked her? Were they _together_ now?

If it was a date, she had no idea what to wear. In the end, she opted for a variation of her favourite outfit: oversized band tee, men’s board shorts, mismatched striped knee-high socks, and her aqua Converse. It was going to have to do; it wasn’t as though she had anything _girly_ to wear, plus Finn didn’t really seem into that sort of thing.

Maybe she was wrong, anyway. Maybe it wasn’t a date. Maybe he really did just want to try and convince her that Steriogram was a good band.

When she got to his house after school and he led her up to his room, she was hopeful that it was more than that. That is, until he sat down at his computer and started playing songs for her.

“Yeah, fine, they’re alright,” she conceded, sitting down at the edge of his bed. “If you like that sort of thing.”

“And what sort of thing is that?” he asked as he swiveled around in his chair to face her.

“You know,” she said. “It’s a bit mainstream.”

He laughed sarcastically. “As if the stuff you listen to is _so_ underground,” he said.

“I don’t have to defend my taste in music to you, alright?”

“Then I shouldn’t have to defend mine.”

“I’m not saying you should. Just admit that it’s mainstream,” she added with a cheeky smile.

“Fine, I’m just a mainstream poseur, then,” he said, leaning forward in his seat. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“You know, I wasn’t sure before, but now that you mention it, yes, yes it is exactly what I wanted to hear.”

“I hate you, you know that?”

“Well, I—” She was about to respond when he lifted himself out of his seat to kiss her. She leaned back in surprise, causing him to nearly fall on top of her. He had to prop himself up on the bed with his hands around either side of her, and she felt him exhale a puff of air on her face, like he was laughing.

When the song ended and the next one began, he broke away from her and sat back down in his chair. “You were saying something?” he said smugly.

Rae could not for the life of her remember what she was going to say, but she knew it couldn’t have been important. Not as important as that.

“Er, nothing,” she replied.

He turned back around to face his computer and changed the song that was playing.

“Hey,” she said as soon as she recognized it. “I thought you didn’t like Screeching Weasel.”

“I just said I _prefer_ The Mr. T Experience,” he said. He looked back over his shoulder at her, smirking.

“Cheeky,” she said as she kicked the back of his chair.

He swiveled towards her again. “Oi!” he said, kicking her foot back, which made her laugh. “You think that’s funny?”

She shrugged and he lunged towards her, tackling her to the bed as she kept laughing.

“You think that’s funny?” he repeated as he held her down by her shoulders.

Now she was the one smirking. “You don’t want to fight me, Finn,” she said.

“Why not?”

She held onto his elbows and managed to push him off of her, flipping him over onto his back next to her as she sat up and leaned over to hold him down, now. “Because I’ll crush you,” she replied.

“Go on, then,” he said, delight in his eyes.

“What?”

“Do it. Crush me.”

“I’m not actually gonna—”

“Come on,” he said. “I can take it.”

Though she tried to hold herself up so that she wouldn’t actually crush him—her chest probably weighed more than he did, she thought—he pulled her down, causing her to lose her balance and land halfway on top of him.

“Alright,” she said with a laugh as she kept trying to lift herself up. “I get it, you’re strong, proper manly. Now would you—”

He grabbed the back of her neck to keep her from escaping and lifted his head so he could kiss her again. They continued wrestling with each other as they kissed until she managed to pin his arms down.

“You win,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I guess this means—”

As it turned out, he wasn’t the only one who could shut someone up by kissing them.

***

After several weeks of hanging out in Finn’s bedroom, Rae wondered what their status was. Sometimes they would end up making out for an hour, and sometimes they wouldn’t even sit near each other the whole time she was over.

This was not one of the latter times, though.

“Finn?” she asked once they were horizontal on his bed.

“Hmm?” he replied as he kept kissing her, thus preventing her from continuing her inquiry.

She pushed him away and laughed a little. “I just wanted to ask if you were going to that show next week,” she said.

“Dunno,” he said. “Why?”

“I was thinking maybe we could go together.”

“Together…” He sighed and rolled away onto his back, running his hand through his hair, which caused it to stick up at odd angles from all the product. “You mean as friends, yeah?” he said. “We’re not, like, _dating_ , right?”

“We’re not…?”

“I mean,” he added, turning to look at her, “this is fun and all, but relationships aren’t very _punk rock_ , are they?”

“They aren’t _what_?” she asked in disbelief as she sat up quickly. “You know Billie Joe Armstrong has a wife and kids, right? Are you saying he’s not punk rock enough for you? He’s like your idol.”

“Now you’re saying we should get married and have kids?”

“Of course not!” she said irritably. “But punk is not about doing things a certain way, Finn. It’s about doing them your own way. And if you don’t get that, then maybe you are just a poseur.”

He tried to hold onto her arm to keep her from leaving, but she pulled it free. “Rae…” he said feebly.

“You were right about one thing,” she said when she reached the door of his room. “ _I’m_ the only true punk left at our school.”

***

Rae told her mum she was hanging out with Chloe again, when really she was going to another punk rock show. This time one of the local bands playing was one she actually liked, so she wasn’t about to miss it, even if Finn was too big of a baby to join her.

He could have just told her he wasn’t interested in her that way, but saying that he couldn’t go out with her because “relationships aren’t very punk rock” was just juvenile.

The club was busier than the last time she was there—other people actually liked this band, too—so she had to muscle her way up to the front of the crowd. She didn’t make it all the way to the stage, but close enough that she would have a good view when the band she liked came on. Some people tried to get past her, but she fought them off; she was not losing her spot.

The band she was waiting for appeared shortly afterwards, and she cheered as loud as she could. She was practically screaming, causing the guy in front of her to turn around and give her a dirty look. But she just shot one right back at him.

She felt oddly smug when he and his girlfriend decided to leave after the moshing started. If they couldn’t handle the screaming and shoving, they shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Rae edged forward into the space they’d left behind, but someone rammed into her back and she stumbled into the person who was now in front of her. She managed to push herself off of him enough to recognize the back of his head.

Finn.

He started to turn around when she pushed him, but she really didn’t want to face him, so she turned around as well and elbowed her way out of the crowd. The further back she went, the more people seemed irritated that she was shoving them out of her way. (They were just here to enjoy some tunes, dammit.)

“Rae!”

She stopped when she thought she heard the sound of her name cutting through the music and turned around to see Finn pushing his way through the crowd behind her.

“Rae!” he repeated, when she whipped back around and continued on her way out. He didn’t catch up to her until she was nearly at the door.

She had to stand aside to let in the people who were just entering the club before she could leave, and in that time Finn reached out for her shoulder, but she jerked it away. “Leave me alone,” she said before walking out.

“Rae, wait,” he said as he followed her. “I just wanna talk to ya.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she replied without stopping.

“I wanted to apologize, actually.”

“Apologize? That’s not very _punk rock_ , is it?”

“Rae, I’m sorry I said that, alright?” he said. “I just, I didn’t—”

“If you didn’t want to date me, you could have just said that you didn’t,” she said. “You didn’t have to make up an excuse.”

“That’s not why I said it,” he argued. “I just didn’t want you thinking—Thinking that I was taking things more seriously than you were. I mean, if you knew how much I wanted to be with you all the time, well, it’s pathetic, really.”

“What?”

“Never mind, I just—”

“You want to be with me all the time?”

“Well, yeah, sort of.”

“Then why would you say—”

“Because I’m an idiot, Rae,” he said loudly. “That’s it. That’s all there is.”

“What do you want from me, then?” she asked as she stopped and folded her arms.

“I want us to go back to the way it was,” he replied. “I liked when we were hanging out.”

“As friends?”

He scratched the back of his head and looked down at his scuffed black Converse. “Yeah, unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you want to… Go out with me?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m still a bit angry at you.”

“Alright, I get it—”

She reached out and held onto his hand, which appeared to surprise him. “Let’s just go back and enjoy the show, yeah?”

He smiled at her. “Yeah.”

***

“And then there’s a key shift here,” said Finn, standing in the middle of his bedroom and waving his hands in the air, like he was conducting the music playing off his computer.

“Ba ba ba ba ba,” he sang along.

“You’re a dork, you do realize this, yes?” said Rae, tugging on the hem of his shirt to pull him down onto the bed next to her.

“Have you got a problem with that?” he asked with a grin.

“I just don’t know if I’m comfortable having a dork as my boyfriend,” she teased.

“Well, you’d better get comfortable with it,” he said, leaning towards her.

“I’ll try.”


End file.
